The Sheikh's Scheming Sweetheart Page 6

“How did you get here?” he asked, amazed. “We found your horse wandering in the desert. I was about to leave with a search party.”

  “It’s a long story,” Vanessa said with relief. “But how are you here? What is this place?”

  “Come inside,” Ramin said, guiding her towards the gates. “You need rest and water. I’ll explain everything. And you can tell me what happened after I lost you.”

  Vanessa didn’t argue, allowing the Sheikh to guide her inside, quietly glad that he wasn’t holding a grudge about how they’d separated. She felt more than a little stupid about all that now.

  “Uncle!” Ramin called as they entered the great marble hall of the palace. “Call off the search! We’ve found her.”

  A tall, older man—as handsome as Ramin despite being in his sixties—hurried down the stairs.

  “This can’t be Miss Hawkins!” the older man said, coming to stand beside Ramin. “Where was she?”

  “She just wandered up to the door,” Ramin said with an incredulous laugh. “Vanessa, this is my uncle, Sheikh Ansar. This is his home.”

  “A pleasure to meet you,” Ansar said, taking Vanessa’s hand to bow over it dramatically. “My nephew has spoken of nothing else since he arrived this afternoon.”

  “Well, I did think she was on her own in the desert,” Ramin said, a little embarrassed. “I assumed you would either camp out at the dig site or return to the city. We planned to find you in the morning. But then your horse turned up without you…”

  “There will be time for catching up later, Ramin,” Ansar scolded him. “The poor girl has been through a nightmare. Let us give her a chance to catch her breath.”

  Chapter Nine

  They led her to a comfortable sitting room and settled her on a plush couch with a blanket around her shoulders, then soon presented her with water and hot tea and food. Once she had a little more energy back, Vanessa explained about losing her horse and the jeep ride into the desert from Peterson.

  “The deceitful devil,” Ansar blustered, red-faced with anger. “I don’t care who his father is; there will be repercussions!”

  “It’s a good thing he didn’t know Ansar’s palace is out here,” Ramin said in quiet gratitude. “My uncle prefers to avoid the bustle of the city, so he had this place built in the middle of nowhere.”

  “It may be remote,” Ansar said, shaking a finger at Ramin. “But it is still the sovereign territory of Ksatta-Galan and the Al-Zand family! We’ll see how well his blasted father’s money holds up to the ire of literal royalty.”

  “It won’t matter if he finds the tomb before we can stop him,” Vanessa said ruefully. “He’ll still win. Legal drama will only drive the press fervor around the discovery and ensure everyone remembers the tomb as that of Cush or Noah or whatever he decides it is. Academia may declare him wrong after the fact, but with an equally sensational media circus, it won’t matter.”

  “Well, then we will just have to find it before him,” Ramin said.

  “That’s easier said than done,” Vanessa warned him.

  “It’s a big desert,” Ramin said with a smile. “Don’t count us out just yet.”

  “We’ll see,” Vanessa said, unsure. “At any rate, thank you very much for your help, Sheikh Ansar. I think I would have been in real trouble without your palace here.”

  “As a friend of Ramin’s, you’re welcome here anytime,” Ansar said kindly. “God knows I need the company.”

  He chuckled in amusement, but Ramin looked uncomfortable.

  “You would not be so in need of company if you lived closer to the city,” Ramin pointed out. “You could live near the family.”

  “What a dutiful nephew he is,” Ansar said to Vanessa, still laughing. “He worries about me far too much.”

  “You’re getting older, Uncle,” Ramin pointed out. “It’s not good for you to be alone so much.”

  “Being alone is precisely what I like,” Ansar said with a sniff. “Certainly, I enjoy your visits, but I hardly need a pack of relatives rushing about underfoot, all noisy and demanding. Peace and quiet are the best things for a man my age.”

  Ramin shook his head, frustrated.

  “I’m going to go and find some more tea,” he said, standing. When Vanessa moved to stand, he gestured for her to remain seated. “Please, stay and rest. I’ll be right back.”

  “Don’t mind him,” Ansar said when his nephew had left. “He thinks because being alone is so frightening to him that it must be the same for everyone.”

  “Do you really not have any family here in this huge place?” Vanessa asked, curious.

  “Only myself,” Ansar replied. “I know it’s a bit wasteful for an old bachelor, but I do intend to leave it to Ramin when I’m gone. It’ll be full of children in no time, I’m certain.”

  “I’m not so sure…” Vanessa muttered into her glass of water.

  “You’ve been reading the tabloids, I assume?” Ansar asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Vanessa blushed, looking away.

  “The rumors are hard to avoid,” she admitted. “I’d barely met him before people were telling me that he’s, well, not the marrying type.”

  Ansar laughed a little, deep and rolling.

  “Is that what they say?” he asked. “The truth is quite the opposite, in my opinion. He’s trying, quite desperately I believe, to find someone. He’s terrified of being alone like me, you see. But, being a prince, he attracts a certain unsavory caliber of person in great numbers. And, since in his urgency to find someone he shows little discernment, he is rather frequently taken advantage of. I think he’s begun to expect it now, and at the faintest sign that a woman is pursuing him for his money or his title, he rejects them outright, and moves on to the next in line. It’s exhausting to watch, frankly.”

  Vanessa listened, not sure she believed it, but at the same time moved to sympathy. And she’d thrown that fit this afternoon, accusing him of using her…

  “I’m afraid he’s rather sabotaged himself,” Vanessa said sadly. “It seems like anyone who didn’t have an ulterior motive would avoid him just based on his reputation.”

  “Such is the difficulty of dating while royalty,” Ansar said, then shrugged and leaned back, pulling out an old-fashioned tobacco pipe. “Which is why I avoid it all entirely.”

  “You’re really content to be alone?” Vanessa asked. “I mean, have you never fallen in love?”

  Ansar lit his pipe and inhaled deeply. He was silent for a long moment, gazing into the smoke.

  “Once,” he admitted. “It’s not much of a story. Ramin’s father, the current Sheikh, is actually my younger brother. I was crown prince. But when it came time for my father to pass on his crown, I was unwed and without heirs and, in general, rather an unreliable person. I’d spent my life traveling and pursuing a dedicated philosophy of hedonism, you see. But my dutiful brother had stayed at home and ingrained himself in the local politics, and taken a wife. He already had young Ramin, only a little child then, and several daughters. I was advised to refuse the crown and allow it to pass to my brother instead, and I, more concerned with my own entertainment than my responsibility to my family, agreed.”

  “I’m sorry,” Vanessa said with a frown, unsure if it was the right sentiment.

  “Don’t be,” Ansar said, waving a hand. “I’d have been a terrible ruling sheikh, especially then. I didn’t know a damn thing, and even now I tend to be more concerned with indulging myself than anything else. My brother was a much better choice. I don’t regret it, save for one thing.”

  He was quiet for another moment, watching the smoke drift up from his pipe. Vanessa waited, curious.

  “A few years later, my wanderlust died down a bit,” he said. “And I met a woman. Fareeha. She was spectacular. My match in everything. Brilliant, wild…” He sighed longingly. “I told my family I intended to marry her. But I had not been paying attention to politics, as my brother had. There was a rising instability in the country. Some who wanted to ov
erthrow the monarchy. And my abdication had caused a division. There were those who still thought I should be Sheikh. And if I married or had children, that division would only widen. I would become a threat to my brother’s claim to the throne, which might destroy Ksatta-Galan entirely. And so I didn’t. I ended my relationship with Fareeha. She married someone else, and I took my leave of society. I came out here, where I could do no harm to anyone.”

  “But that’s terrible,” Vanessa said, her heart breaking at the thought. “You should never have had to do that.”

  “I denied my responsibility to my family once,” Ansar said solemnly. “I could not do it twice. But please don’t pity me. I’m happy here, truly.”

  He sighed and stood up from his chair, pipe clenched in his teeth.

  “Well, since I don’t need to go searching the desert for a beautiful damsel tonight,” he said with a groan. “I think I’ll retire. I’ve had rooms prepared for you and Ramin. Just ask one of the staff to show you. In the morning, we’ll see what we can do about that Peterson character. Goodnight, Miss Hawkins.”

  Ansar headed for the stairs and, as he passed a hall door, added, “And goodnight, Nephew.”

  Ramin stepped out of the shadows reluctantly as his uncle departed.

  “How long were you listening?” Vanessa asked.

  “For most of it,” he admitted, his voice heavy.

  He crossed the room to set the tea tray he was still holding down on the coffee table.

  “I wanted to apologize for what I said at the oasis,” Vanessa said a little awkwardly. “I was being an idiot.”

  “I was foolish, too,” Ramin said, pouring them both tea. “I shouldn’t have come on so strong. Especially knowing the kinds of rumors that are out there about me.”

  “Perhaps we can try again,” Vanessa said, offering a hand to him. “I’m Vanessa Hawkins, idiot archeologist.”

  He took her hand with a smile.

  “Ramin Al-Zand,” he said. “Insatiable playboy.”

  “It’s good to meet you,” Vanessa said, smiling back at him.

  He held her hand just a little too long, then they let go, both of them a little flustered. Vanessa cleared her throat.

  “So, Mr. Insatiable Playboy. Why do you date so many women?”

  “You’ve seen my uncle,” Ramin said, inclining his head in the direction the man had left. “I don’t want to end up like that, a hermit in a palace, ostracized for the good of the crown. It’s terrifying.”

  “So, you’ll take anyone?” Vanessa asked, frowning.

  “Of course not,” Ramin said, shaking his head. “That’s part of the problem. Whoever I marry has to be up to my family’s standards as well. Someone accomplished and intelligent who won’t embarrass the crown when she eventually becomes Sheikha. On top of that, I won’t be with someone who’s only interested in me for my money or my title.

  “After a handful of normal relationships that just didn’t work out, the tabloids started reporting on me as being some kind of philanderer. One of my exes gave this lurid interview, and after that, I couldn’t be seen with a woman without it becoming the talk of the town. Now, half the women who approach me are either after my money or the fifteen minutes of fame from having dated me. Any women who might be different see the same articles you did and run the other way.”

  “That sounds frustrating,” Vanessa said sympathetically. “Sometimes I feel the same way with my work. Except it’s funding or research approval instead of women, and rather than my money or title they’re either running from my research subject or my devotion to it above all else.”

  “That does sound frustrating,” Ramin chuckled. He looked up suddenly, then stood. “It’s too early for bed. Why don’t I give you a tour of the palace?”

  “That sounds great,” Vanessa agreed, standing to join him. “Lead the way.”

  She followed him out of the sitting room and through the long, marble-floored hallways.

  “I spent a great deal of time here while I was growing up,” he said as they walked. “My sisters and I ran over every inch of this place. I suppose my father brought us here to cheer my uncle up after what happened.”

  “It seems like you two are close,” Vanessa said, walking beside him.

  “In some ways, he was more a father figure to me than the Sheikh,” Ramin admitted. “My father is a great man who cares for me deeply. But he is, understandably, quite busy with matters of state. My uncle, with his wealth of free time, was far more willing to devote a bit of that time to me and my sisters when we were growing up. Where my time with my father was most often dedicated to teaching me the functions of various matters of state, it was Ansar I came to with my troubles and from whom I received the advice of which I still abide by to this day.”

  They crossed into an inner courtyard overflowing with flowers. Jasmine danced in the night breeze and hyacinth climbed trellises against the walls, which rose tower-like around them to the highest floors, leaving no square inch without greenery except that which contained the blue ink frame of the star-speckled sky.

  “I broke my wrist falling from that trellis once,” Ramin said with a chuckle. “I don’t even remember why I decided to climb it. I was almost to the third floor before it came away from the wall and I lost my grip. I’m lucky I wasn’t hurt worse, honestly.”

  “You seem like the type to get into a lot of mischief like that,” Vanessa teased.

  “I was,” Ramin confirmed, reaching up to pluck a jasmine blossom and offer it to her with a theatrical sweep of his arm. “And you? Were you a well-behaved child?”

  “Well, that depends on who you ask,” Vanessa said with a small laugh as she took the flower. “My teachers all thought I was a dream and the other children thought I was weird and dull. But my parents were quite lost for how to deal with me. My mother was a dentist and my father was an accountant. The kind of people who think mustard is spicy and were worried painting the living room walls anything but white would be ‘too avant-garde.’

  “Then there was me, barreling through their orderly world, tracking in mud from digging for fossils and scaring them when I went on adventures into the woods alone. By any measure, I was a studious if anti-social child, more inclined to spend my Friday nights in my room reading about ancient civilizations than gallivanting with boys. But they never quite understood. You know, to this day, I actually think they’re disappointed in me. I’m not sure what it was they wanted from me, but I guess traveling around the world digging up tombs wasn’t part of it.”

  “What a pity for them,” Ramin said as he took the flower she was twirling between her fingers to set it in her hair. “They missed out on something truly special.”

  Vanessa blushed, looking away, and Ramin withdrew.

  “I apologize,” he said. “I didn’t mean to flirt again.”

  “No, it’s fine,” she said quickly, embarrassed, touching the flower in her hair. “I like it.”

  “Does that mean you’ve changed your mind about me?” he asked, offering her his arm.

  “Well, I wouldn’t say that,” Vanessa said loftily, taking his arm as he led her out of the courtyard and into a moonlit corridor, its lattice walls letting in the night breeze and the glow of the stars.

  “I’ve been foolish.” He chuckled. “A brilliant woman like yourself probably has some devoted scholar back home, waiting for her.”

  “Maybe I do,” Vanessa said with a smile.

  “Well, he must not be an archeologist, or he would be here with you,” Ramin said thoughtfully. “Is he a poet? Does he write you sweet sonnets? I could write better. The moon which glows through Saturn’s jealous eye, compared to you, is a dull and borrowed shine!”

  Vanessa giggled, shaking her head.

  “While I do have a soft spot for poetry,” Vanessa admitted. “I’ve never cared for poets.”

  “Of course not,” Ramin said at once. “The man who’s stolen your heart must be one powerful enough to keep it from all your suitors. A wa
rrior then! Show me his strength and I will show you I can best him.”

  He mimed a series of fencing moves with an accuracy that made Vanessa sure he wasn’t wrong. She laughed again.

  “No,” she told him. “I haven’t yet met a warrior who could also keep up with the conversation.”

  “So, it’s a conversationalist you love,” Ramin said with an air of understanding. “A glamorous socialite who can whisk you away to fine parties full of fascinating people. But, tell me his name and I will gather all the brightest minds and brilliant souls of Europe to your parlor with a sweep of my arm.”

  Vanessa, pink in the cheeks and still laughing at his theatrics, shook her head again.

  “No,” she said, amused. “No socialites. Too many parties are exhausting. I’d rather be studying. And no warriors or poets, either.”

  “Then who is the man who’s stolen your heart?” Ramin begged.

  “Well,” Vanessa considered. “He’s someone who matches me not just in intelligence, but in enthusiasm. He doesn’t lose interest when I ramble about the ancient world and he can answer me readily with stories of his own. He’s brave, unafraid to ride out in search of answers or adventure. But he’s responsible as well. He cares about his family. He’s considerate, thoughtful…and he has the most beautiful dark brown eyes.”

  They’d reached the end of the corridor and Ramin paused, his back against the broad, carved double doors.

  “He isn’t a prince by any chance, is he?” Ramin asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “As a matter of fact, he is,” Vanessa admitted with a coy smile.

  “Ah, then I can’t hope to compete,” Ramin said with a sigh. “Tell me his name and I’ll admit my defeat to him. He should know how close I came to stealing you away.”

  “You already know his name,” Vanessa teased.

  “It isn’t Peterson, is it?” Ramin asked with a frown, and Vanessa laughed loudly, shaking her head.

  “Well then, the only other prince I know is…” Ramin frowned dramatically, playing it up as he considered his options. Suddenly, his eyes shot wide in mock horror. “It can’t be Uncle Ansar! That scoundrel! I left him alone with you for half a moment and he’s stolen your heart! I should have known. He’s always been far too charming for his own good.”